10 ms·
Bravo. That whole thread is smart, well-reasoned, and puts democracy above profits. Good for them. I particularly like his last point: > A final note. This is
by nlh 7y ago
Bravo. That whole thread is smart, well-reasoned, and puts democracy above profits. Good for them.
I particularly like his last point:
> A final note. This isn’t about free expression. This is about paying for reach. And paying to increase the reach of political speech has significant ramifications that today’s democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle. It’s worth stepping back in order to address.
Which I cannot read in any way but “f-you, Facebook.”
And honestly, he’s totally right. This issue is NOT about freedom of expression...it’s about freedom to pay for expression (and freedom to pay for having others see your expression), and I don’t think that’s inherently a good thing. It’s certainly not what the first amendment is about.
- buboard 7y ago> Which I cannot read in any way but “f-you, Facebook.” He was even more explicit: > For instance, it‘s not credible for us to say: “We’re working hard to stop people from gaming our systems to spread misleading info, buuut if someone pays us to target and force people to see their political ad…well...they can say whatever they want! ”
- zouhair 7y agoIt's easy to blame Facebook, it is well known Zucky needs the money, rent is not cheap in California.
- dang 7y agoPlease don't post unsubstantive comments here.
- Consultant32452 7y agoI'm skeptical of this. Is a private charity promoting an LGBT fundraiser a political ad? What about Fox News pushing an ad about how other news is fake. Or MSNBC pushing an ad about Russia collusion? Was the now infamous Gillette woke ad political? It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out.
- danso 7y ago"Political advertising" may be limited to advertising that is bought for by political campaigns and PACs, which they have a previously defined policy for: https://business.twitter.com/en/help/ads-policies/restricted-content-policies/political-content/political-campaigning-advertising-policy-FAQs.html https://business.twitter.com/en/help/ads-policies/restricted... > The policy varies across markets but generally applies to ads that advocate for or against a candidate or political party, or ads by candidates and/or entities registered with their respective electoral commission. edit: as u/ben509 pointed out, the above link only refers to political campaigns. Here's the link that defines "political content" as both campaigns and issue advocacy (at least in the U.S.) https://business.twitter.com/en/help/ads-policies/restricted-content-policies/political-content/US-political-content.html https://business.twitter.com/en/help/ads-policies/restricted...
- ben509 7y agoThis is wrong. He also said issue ads would be blocked.
- danso 7y agoPerhaps the better link should be this one, which defines "political content", and covers both "political campaigning and issue advocacy advertising" https://business.twitter.com/en/help/ads-policies/restricted-content-policies/political-content/US-political-content.html https://business.twitter.com/en/help/ads-policies/restricted...
- RandallBrown 7y agoBased on what he said, I don't think any of those will be blocked. It sounds like it's talking about campaign ads specifically, whether that's for people or issues. I'm sure it will be better defined in the final policy.
- ben509 7y agoYeah, "political" is a weasel word like "extremist." A view I like isn't political, it's just common sense or settled science, it's the other guy's views that are "political."
- tomp 7y ago> This is about paying for reach. And paying to increase the reach of political speech has significant ramifications that today’s democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle Let's just keep in mind that Trump spent way less on the election in total than Clinton did.
- mrtksn 7y agoWhy do we keep that in mind?
- tomp 7y agoControversy is addictive. By forbidding spending money to get reach, the ones with most reach will be those who are the most controversial.
- munk-a 7y agoCertainly with how media organizations are currently oriented and the assumption that those organizations will continue to be able to advertise or opine on candidates. But there is no definite reason that news network needs to be chasing stories 24/7 as they are now, that's a relatively new trend.
- mrtksn 7y agoSounds fine to me. You hold a popularity contest for the top job, the most popular person gets elected in a transparent fashion. It's very different than opaquely targeting individuals because you know what is going on and if you disagree you can do your own thing to win support.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- knzhou 7y ago> And paying to increase the reach of political speech has significant ramifications that today’s democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle. [...] This issue is NOT about freedom of expression...it’s about freedom to pay for expression (and freedom to pay for having others see your expression), and I don’t think that’s inherently a good thing. It’s certainly not what the first amendment is about. Doesn't the same argument also apply to ads in radio, TV, newspapers, mass mailing, email campaigns, and paying a guy to hand out brochures? Would you agree that it is equally bad to allow political ads in all these contexts? Genuinely curious here if the principle is meant to be applied consistently, or if the internet is different somehow.
- JaRail 7y agoThose advertising methods don't allow you to micro-target based on people's private behavior. Micro-targeting and machine learning lets campaigns (like Cambridge Analytica's) generate what's effectively a thousand different campaigns, targeting exactly what triggers specific people the most. There's absolutely nothing stopping them from saying the exact opposite thing to two different people. That's what our current institutions may not be prepared to handle.
- gameswithgo 7y agothe use of fake account swarms to spread political ideology seems the more powerful use of twitter than legitimate ads. will we see a correspondingly brave effort to delete fake accounts?
- WalterSear 7y agoAlready against the TOS, and they already do that.
- gingergreen 7y agoIt's like using a butterfly net to capture water. They do it but it's not effective.
- gameswithgo 7y agoyet they seem pervasive still.
- LegitShady 7y agoTwitter's entire net revenue isa small line item to google and youtube. Saying fuck you and being a small fraction of your opposition is not brave and totally useless.
- Mountain_Skies 7y agoThought I don't have an objection to Twitter not accepting political advertising, their rationalization sounds like they're saying voters are too stupid to figure out what to believe so it's best if they are put in a bubble. It's interesting how closely this matches the arguments against labeling GMO foods because consumers are too stupid to decide for themselves if GMO food is harmless or not. We love democracy. We love freedom. We love choice. But mostly in theory and not so much in practice when it comes to the masses. Anyone seen Napoleon, Squealer, and Snowball hanging around?
- throwaway_law 7y ago>puts democracy above profits In fairness Twitter has been public since 2013 and in that time only turned a profit in 1 year. These ads wouldn't make or break them, and its far more valuable to get the PR while FB is in the media for the same issue.
- thrower123 7y agoGreat. I think I already have just about all of them blocked anyway, and I only ever seem to see unsolicited ads on Twitter on my phone browser - UBlock Origin seems to be highly competent at wiping out all sponsored Tweets, root and nail, in desktop Chrome.
- noisem4ker 7y agoYou can block stuff on your phone browser too. uBlock Origin works on Firefox Mobile.
- theuri 7y agoRegardless of where you are on the political spectrum - it's really inspiring to see a company take a stand against political advertising, if it can't be properly vetted. One more step to strengthen our democracy.
- BurningFrog 7y agoThe contrarian view is that banning political advertising favors incumbents in elections. The incumbents are already known. Challengers have to make themselves known, and paid advertising is one of the main ways that is possible.
- dnautics 7y agoThis is very much the part of the political spectrum I'm on.
- rapind 7y agoIncumbents usually have a lot more money to spend on advertising though too. On average I doubt advertising helps challengers more than incumbents (there are always edge cases of course).
- spunker540 7y agoIt comes down to incrementality. Sure Trump has way more money than most challengers, but most people have also already made up their minds about him. His cost to acquire incremental voters is probably much higher than a lesser-known challenger.
- yellow_postit 7y agoEven if he’s not getting incremental votes he can dominate the share of voice by pricing out the competitors.
- rapind 7y ago
- kkotak 7y agoSpeaking of 'Paying for reach'. The Supreme Court said (in 2014) there should be no limit on how much an individual can contribute to campaigns (money that is used to buy reach) - And Corporations are legal persons - so... https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/us/politics/supreme-court-ruling-on-campaign-contributions.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/us/politics/supreme-court...
- heretoo 7y ago> It’s certainly not what the first amendment is about. Only one country has the first amendment, and this decision from twitter is globally applicable, so it shouldn't factor into the decision.
- mattrp 7y agoThose pesky Americans with their free speech... doesn’t anyone here see what this really is about? The elites have lost control of the narrative so they are doing what all elites do in a time of crisis: ban it all. Shut up you mere mortals and go back to doing what you’re told and thinking what we want you to think.
- andrepd 7y agoInteresting... Who do you think buys multimillion dollar media ads, if not the elites? It's very much the opposite of what you're saying.
- mattrp 7y agoWell this sort of underscores the problem with this approach — who exactly is an elite? What exactly is political? We can’t even agree yet we think Twitter is going to be better at it than us? If it were up to me, I would design the platform as one in which all messages including those with mail-intent were allowed. Then I’d enable the client software to decide based on user preferences. Having a centralized scrutinizer is just a recipe for bad Ju-ju.
- lioeters 7y ago(I didn't downvote you but) I think the "elites" are the ones who most abuse the right to free speech, by controlling mass media and the public narrative, as well as conflating political contributions as "speech". Money talks. When Jack says: > This isn’t about free expression. This is about paying for reach. And paying to increase the reach of political speech has significant ramifications that today’s democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle. Paying for reach and political influence has already pushed democracy to the breaking point. The symptoms are everywhere, from the appalling state of public healthcare, to regulatory capture in virtually every industry, especially financial. The "elites" are not a single group, but a fractured one with varying interests vying for power - but they do have one thing in common, which is using money as speech to control the narrative.
- IIAOPSW 7y ago>It’s certainly not what the first amendment is about. >Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the right of the people to peaceably assemble... Press is pay to express. Only difference is the scale and price.
- opetusert 7y agoTikTok also bans political advertising. Are there any other companies?
- smsm42 7y agoGiven that practically for any issue of importance there's enough money on each side of the issue to buy a campaign on Twitter, it doesn't really matter. But if Twitter doesn't want to take money that would expose them to pressure over banning somebody's political speech (somehow nowadays it became ok in the US of A to call to ban your political opponent from speaking - who could have known that'd happen?) - it can be a sensible solution. Twitter would still be pressured to ban for politics (and probably would yield to that pressure, as it did many times before) but at least their revenue department would be kept out of this mess.
- Kalium 7y ago> It’s certainly not what the first amendment is about. Freedom of the Press has always been about expression and the ability to pay for reach. Printing presses were - and are - horrendously expensive.
- cwp 7y agoYears ago I ran across a quote that went something like "Freedom of Speech gives you the right to own a printing press, not the right to use mine." I wish I could track down who said it. That's basically what Jack is saying too. I don't see how "Freedom of the Press" could be construed to mean that publishers are obligated to run any ad that somebody is willing to pay for. That's never been the case.
- Kalium 7y agoYou're absolutely right. There's a fine and subtle distinction to be made here - Freedom of the Press preserve the right of someone to seek to pay for reach for their expression and the right of those with reach to sell it. As you say, this does not oblige anyone with a press to use it for any given person's benefit. It just means that the basic concept of paying for expression and to expose other people to it is something baked into the First Amendment. Just not the Speech Clause.
- hubert1234 7y agoI just found the perfect way to sum this all up and I'm making a prediction: NRA ads will be banned on twitter but Planned Parenthood ads will not. The total lack of self reflection and thinking on part of Twitter is really something else. Facebook made the right decision, Twitter made the wrong decision. It cannot be more obvious.